The Osprey: Going to Pot - The impacts of marijuana cultivation on northwest California salmon and steelhead streams
I am writing this column on May 24, the first annual World Fish Migration Day. Conceived, organized and sponsored by a variety of groups involved with fish conservation throughout the world, there will be events over the course of the week celebrating migratory fish, educating people about the challenges to survival they face and helping people to become involved in fish conservation.
As migratory fish go, wild salmon and steelhead occupy the top of the heap, traveling thousands of miles between when they leave their natal streams to when they return again to spawn, and the gauntlet of dangers they face on that migration is truly daunting.
As readers of The Osprey know, the pages of each issue are devoted to making sure that we have the critical mass of wild fish out there in our streams, rivers and oceans to keep those migrations going by getting out the information wild fish advocates need to achieve that end.
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
• PUGET SOUND STEELHEAD
• SANDY RIVER RESTORATION
• TONGASS STEELHEAD
• TRANSBOUNDARY MINING
• COLUMBIA & SNAKE BIOP
• REDFISH LAKE SOCKEYE
In this edition of The Osprey, we explore some old, recurring issues in familiar places, take a look at emerging issue that might spell trouble for wild salmon and steelhead in the future, and visit salmon and steelhead country we have never been to before.
In the first category is the Columbia and Snake rivers Biological Opinion, once again under scrutiny and criticism for not doing enough to save flagging runs on those river systems.
A new and expanding issue is the emerging problem of illegal marijuana farms in northwestern California, where growers divert water out of important salmon and steelhead nursery streams and dump herbicides and other toxins into those waterways.
We’re also off to explore some new country with a primer on the wild steelhead of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest and proposed large-scale mines in the remote and salmon-rich Transboundary region along the Alaska-British Columbia border. Another story fills us in on restoration work on the Sandy River since the Marmot Dam that hampered fish migration was removed. And finally, a critique of the effort to restore Redfish Lake sockeye salmon, another run whose survival is threatened by a compromised migration route.